Biostar's TA75M+ motherboard is a micro-ATX
entry level platform with relatively robust onboard graphics care of the AMD Fusion
APU processor and thorough storage options via AMDs A75 chipset. Built around the AMD Fusion A75 chipset,
the board supports socket FM1 AMD A8/A6-series processors which feature integrated graphics in the
form of a Radeon HD 6550D/6530D graphics core. With the AMD Fusion platform it's
possible to build a very economical mainstream computer system on a tight budget.

The Biostar
TA75M+ motherboard is equipped with four DIMMs that support up to
32GB of dual channel DDR3-800/1066/1333/1600/1866 memory in a 64-bit
Widows 7 environment. Entry level 4GB DDR3 memory modules don't cost much these days,
but a better option would be a pair of 8GB memory modules for this platform.
The integrated Radeon HD 65xxD-series IGP will allocate up to 512MB of system memory
to itself, so more system memory is best if you plan on using the AMD Fusion A8/A6
processors' integrated graphics.

In brief the integrated graphics core has up to
400 shader processors, supports DX11, runs at clock speeds of up to 600MHz
and supports DirectCompute, Blu-Ray 3d, UVD3 and OpenCL. The IGP is
powerful enough to get you in the door on most FPS games at reasonable frame
rates and screen resolutions. When it comes to HD video decoding and regular
old desktop 2D graphics, the AMD Fusion IGP is more than capable. If your
gaming needs eventually demand higher resolutions or image quality, the TA75M+ board has
a PCI Express 2.0 x16 videocard slot ready and waiting.

The Biostar TA75M+ motherboard has been built with a
good variety of expansion slots; the aforementioned PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot for
discrete NVIDIA or ATI graphics cards (at x16), a PCI Express 2.0 x4 and x1 slot
and legacy PCI slot. As with most microATX motherboards, space is at a premium.
Storage options on the Biostar TA75M+ consist of six internal SATA III ports
capable of 6Gb/s transfer rates - no IDE devices are supported at all. The SATA
ports can be configured to RAID 0, 1 and 10 modes. The board also has three USB
2.0 and a single USB 3.0 header onboard, yet unfortunately Biostar does not
provide even a single USB bracket to make use of these headers.

At the back
of the Biostar TA75M+ motherboard you'll find two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0
ports, three onboard graphics ports (HDMI, DVI-D and VGA), Gigabit LAN and the
usual assortment of 7.1 channel HD audio jacks. Given that there's a bit of space remaing on the rear I/O,
we're surprised Biostar haven't added Firewire, or at the very least an eSATA
port.

Biostar's TA75M+ motherboard is a fairly conservative
take on the AMD A75 chipset, fortunately what this motherboard lacks in bundled-in
extras it delivers in price. Expect to find the Biostar TA75M+ for
less than $95 CDN, ($95 USD, £55 GBP) online.

Integrated Graphics

The Biostar TA75M+ supports dual-displays over its onboard video ports; HDMI/DVI and
VGA. So for example, it can output video to an analog monitor and HDTV
at the same time. With a discreet Radeon HD 6670/6570/6450 PCI Express graphics card, AMD "Dual
Graphics" can also be configured.

While the Radeon HD 6550D IGP proves itself capable of light
gaming (as you'll shortly see in PCSTATS extensive benchmarks), it can't keep up
with modern hard core games at anything approaching high image quality settings. The
same can be said of Intel's socket 1155 Core i5 processors which
have graphics integrated directly into the CPU too.

Now it's time to go in for a closer look
at the Biostar TA75M+ motherboard, but first a quick refresher on what the AMD A75
chipset and Socket FM1 Fusion APU processors bring to the table.